AI Podcast: Your Next Pizza Delivery May Come Topped with AI

At least, that’s the concept that Kevin Peterson is trying to achieve with his robotics company, Marble. It recently made news for deploying food delivery robots onto the streets of San Francisco.

Peterson, Marble’s co-founder and software lead, joined this week’s AI Podcast to talk about their efforts to integrate AI into the delivery process.

Marble’s robots, all named “Happy,” look like a white boxcar about the size of a mobility scooter. They’re complete with a trunk, where it stores packages. Users get a code with their delivery confirmation to access their packages.

“We want everyone’s first interaction with the robot to be delightful, actually,” explained Peterson in a conversation with Michael Copeland, the host of NVIDIA’s AI Podcast. “So we spend a lot of time designing that interaction and making sure the vehicle is operating in a way that looks good and is good.”

To provide efficient delivery, the Marble team uses a 3D map system to plan out the best routes for their delivery bots. According to Peterson, the robot has a program that detects last-minute route obstacles, and then will request a re-route.

For Peterson, automating delivery systems is only the beginning.

“There’s a huge amount of impact in the world that comes from having these kinds of autonomous vehicles out there,” he says.

AI Podcast: AI Can Be as Racist and Sexist as We Are

Last week, we spoke with Aylin Caliskan, a ‎postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University, about how we are corrupting AI with our own biases.